PH-794, 1945

The plainsman draws the peaks he does not know,
Giving them halos, like the far off heads
Of ever distant angels, in whose glow
The sun that beats upon the old homesteads
Is candlelight. Up on the peaks they gleam
Refracting little fires, maybe but
A dim reflection of the reds that stream
Hidden behind, where nobody knows what
May live. The dark surrounding all is thick
Yet in that thickness lies a kind of light
Caught from the distance by a painter's trick
That bends beyond the likelihood of sight
And makes the sky, broken by peaks unknown
A part of him: the world he paints, his own.